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Influence of Food Resources on the Ranging Pattern of Northern Pig-tailed Macaques (Macaca leonina)

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Abstract

Food availability may influence primates’ home range size and use. Understanding this relationship may facilitate the design of conservation strategies. We aimed to determine how fruit availability influences the ranging patterns of a group of northern pig-tailed macaques (Macaca leonina) living around the visitor center of Khao Yai National Park, Thailand. We predicted that macaques would increase their range during low fruit abundance periods to gather high-quality food and that they would go where there are more fruits or more fruits of particular species. We also predicted that human food, linked to human presence, would attract the macaques. We followed the macaques and recorded their diet and movements within their home range. We superimposed a grid on kernels defining the monthly home range surface to compare spatially macaques’ travel and the availability of fruits measured on botanical transects. Our results showed that the macaques increased their monthly home range in March, probably to obtain newly available fruits. During high fruit abundance seasons, they spent more time near particular fruit species. In August and September, although fruits became rare again, macaques kept their home range large, perhaps to find enough fruits as supplies dwindled. Finally, from October to February, they decreased their monthly home range size while consuming human food, a high-quality item. In conclusion, the macaques used several ranging strategies according to fruit availability. However, we think that, without human food, macaques would tend to increase their range during low fruit abundance periods, as predicted.

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Acknowledgments

We thank the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation and the National Research Council of Thailand for granting research permission, and the superintendent of Khao Yai National Park for his hospitality. We thank Warren Y. Brockelman for sharing with us botanical information and data from his permanent plot. We thank George Gale, Lee Olsen, Poornima Raghunathan, and Julie Koldewyn for editing the English; Jack Weiss for his adaptation of the QICu code; and Norberto Asensio for his advice. We are grateful to Joanna Setchell (editor-in-chief), Oliver Schülke (associate editor), Goro Hanya, Andreas Koenig, and four anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on the manuscript. This study was carried out with the financial support of the University of Liège, Belgium (A. Albert), and that of the Biodiversity Research and Training Program, Thailand (grant no. BRT R_349007) (T. Savini and M-C. Huynen). The research was approved by the Department of National Parks, Wildlife, and Plant Conservation, Bangkok, and conducted in full compliance with the laws of the Kingdom of Thailand.

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  1. Behavioral Biology Unit, Department of Biology, Ecology and Evolution, University of Liège, 4020, Liège, Belgium

    Aurélie Albert, Marie-Claude Huynen & Alain Hambuckers

  2. Conservation Ecology Program, School of Bioresources and Technology, King Mongkut’s University of Technology Thonburi, Bangkok, Thailand

    Tommaso Savini

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  1. Aurélie Albert
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  2. Marie-Claude Huynen
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  4. Alain Hambuckers
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Correspondence to Aurélie Albert.

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Albert, A., Huynen, MC., Savini, T. et al. Influence of Food Resources on the Ranging Pattern of Northern Pig-tailed Macaques (Macaca leonina). Int J Primatol 34, 696–713 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10764-013-9690-z

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